Wildflower (for Foster)

Foster can you tell me
where you left the tapes
me on my first guitar
you riffing poetic escapes

v.2

We hit record in parent’s basement
our earnest, unflinching truth
unaware three years later
you’d cashed in on your youth

c.

I’d go visit your gravesite
but i’d waste precious hour
you don’t belong in flat mown lawn
when you are a wildflower

don’t need to pour one out for you
or leave a fat one rolled
i’ll just light the signal fires
to make sure your story’s told

b.

Im equally cynical
about magic, myths and cults
check your religion elsewhere
unless about happiness
but every once in a while
i’ll catch a shimmering eye
an elder mountain lady
or a wizened, grizzled father
I notice your mischievous gleam
seeking intelligence
and think reincarnation
might not be what we think
you didn’t come back a baby
a persian cat or sacred cow
instead we are added
to something bigger than ourselves
another log on a funeral pyre
sparks of you glint forever
illuminating something strange
like spores inoculating an old growth root
or lighting when there is no rai

v.3

smartest kid in high school
verified by federal agents
a useless accolade your discovered
and sought a slanting tangent

v.4

eschewed all the scholarships
bored by any constraints
split westward like we dreamed
and landed in the Haight

v.5

i ignored their useless platitudes
self serving, cliched and quaint
“was taken from us far too soon” they moan
when their missing your whole point

v.6

you didn’t mean to leave per se
but no one took you away
your charted your own course
regardless of consequenc

v.7

quick neighbourhood update
the horse kicked others besides you
found in gas station bathroom stalls
still and already turning blu

v.8

not sure what you were lacking
or seeking with your experiment
it’s not on me to judge my friend
only to share this brief lament